Alexandra Daw

“The noises of society fending off despair with routine.”
― Nathan Harris, The Sweetness of Water

“At times he felt he was living his very largest life, as though his soul were billowing before him like a huge and rippling sail.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Tell Me Everything

“And alongside this decision there was some forfeiture in the thought he found unsettling: that for every pound of weight they’d carried across their backs, for every drop of sweat that had poured off, no inch of this land was theirs. As long as they stayed, they were no better than the others, kept on the borders of town, hidden among the trees just like their brothers and sisters. And it grew clear that the only path to a life worth living would be found elsewhere, where they might not have more but could not possibly have less.”
― Nathan Harris, The Sweetness of Water

“I missed them. It was as if they had written a play and constructed the set, and whenever I was with them I ha a part to perform. I fell into it so easily: a secondary character, someone ordinary against whom the leads could shine. Now that they had packed up and left I felt I had forgotten my lines." p. 174”
― Pip Williams, The Dictionary of Lost Words